


halcyon (or: how to breathe again)

by scarlet_mangata



Category: Dream SMP- fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Gen, aka clingyduo + ranboo need a goddamn stable adult, and tbh so do some of the adults, like pokemon cards as the fic goes on, more to be added because im just gonna be collecting found family, so yknow. OFF SAM GOES.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:41:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28705365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarlet_mangata/pseuds/scarlet_mangata
Summary: sam holds his hands up in a peacemaking gesture, and then stops short as the two freeze and fall silent. there’s no mistaking the fear; not in their expressions, he can’t read tubbo’s right now, and tommy’s got a familiar sort of defiance, but in the way that they’re pressed so tight together that he can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. like they can’t figure out who’d jump in front of the sword first- like they can’t tell who’d be the first to disappear.there’s an axe in tommy’s hand like he’s forgotten how to not hold one, and tubbo’s hands are hovering above a shield at his side, and sam realizes that one of them is watching him and the other is watching his trident.one has an axe and the other has a shield, and neither are even old enough to drink and yet they’ve seen enough blood and death to last them a decade.and quite abruptly, sam realizes how out of his depth he is.--also known as: sam sees these traumatized kids, and traumatized adults, and says "no, i won't let this tragedy play out, what happens if we give them a safe space to land and heal?"
Relationships: Sam | Awesamdude & Darryl Noveschosch, Sam | Awesamdude & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Sam | Awesamdude & TommyInnit, Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit
Comments: 86
Kudos: 802





	1. kuebiko.

_ Ping. _

_ <BadBoyHalo> come to lmanburg _

_ Ping. _

_ <BadBoyHalo> you should see this _

The communicator’s gentle ringtone cuts through the steady hiss of redstone. Sam stares at the two notifications, and desperately tries to think of why he’d be called to a city so steeped in war that their anthem rings of gunpowder and tragedy. not by Tubbo, not by Tommy- but by  _ Bad.  _

He comes up blank as he pulls out his trident. He can’t read any panic between the lines, just a gentle, if eager invitation. 

The scenery below him blurs into greens and browns, anyways. He’s not  _ running _ \- he can’t see any danger. but he will never trust for safety and L’manburg to exist in the same world, let alone the same thought- and so he doesn’t run, but  _ flies _ . 

He flies, until the ground drops out from under him. 

Backpedaling, it’s all he can do to jam the trident deep into soil and haul himself back, while Bad laughs and calls out “careful, careful, they haven’t put up safety railings yet,” from a distance. Bad laughs, and all Sam can do is stare at the crater that scars itself down to the very bones of their world. 

“What  _ happened?! _ ”

“Dream happened,” Bad informs him, tone deceptively lighthearted. “Well, and Technoblade, and Philza. I’ve heard it was… ten withers? Ten withers, and an array of TNT machines.” 

Sam looks up at the obsidian grid that stretches itself above the city’s grave, and sees a faint wink of redstone, left untethered. The machines hang, silent now that the hour of execution is past. He looks back at the crater, and traces the edges of it. Dirt and stone, wood and clay are ripped away with equal fervor. 

Not a single square inch has been spared. 

Stepping back, Sam gathers himself for a moment, before he leaps from block to tattered block. 

It’s a simple formula. jump, pause. Gather yourself, don’t impale yourself on the charred fences hanging over the edge.

Jump, pau- Sam doubles back, a flash of yellow flickering through his vision. There’s a dirt block hanging above the abyss, ash and scorched earth held together only by the roots of the dandelion desperately clinging to it. He has to squint to find the last petals on it, but he counts out a few to the end. 

There’s still life here, then. 

There’s just nothing left for it to grow onto. There’s just nothing else left for it,  _ period. _

Copper, thick and intrusive, blooms across the back of his tongue. They’ve taken it all away, then. One final time, they’ve stripped it away- why?

“Tommy broke the rules,” Bad answers, and Sam realizes he’s asked it aloud. “And Tubbo sided with him.” 

“Tommy broke exile, so their response was to raze their city and their homes down to bedrock?” There’s still people picking through the wreckage, and Sam can’t find it within himself to care as they stop at hearing his voice carry through the empty air.

It’s dangerous, but so are they, Sam thinks, as he locks eyes with Eret, and watches the king look away. They can handle a little thought about the consequences of their actions.

Bad doesn’t respond, and Sam wheels around to face him, sweeping his trident across to encompass the scavengers. “Where was everybody else?  _ How did this happen? _ ”

The accusatory tone seems to flick a switch, because Bad rolls his eyes and hops to the next ledge. “If Dream wants to do something, you know as well as I do that there’s not a thing any of us can do to stop him. not with the firepower on his side.”

“The issue is that he wanted that in the first place!”

Gunpowder hisses to the floor around them as Sam leaps after him.

Bad and Sam hold each other’s eyes for a heartbeat, and then Bad turns away. This close, Sam can see the silvery scars from the vines that crawl up the side of his face, and the exhaustion that his robe and hood hide. They do know, better than most, the lengths that Dream will go to once he sets his mind to something. 

Once, it was used to build their world up from earth and stone.

Now Dream uses that fervor to burn, and burn, and burn.

“They- they have bled and died for this damn country. They wanted a  _ home,  _ Bad. They were finally settling in- and nobody had a problem with burning it down to the bones?” 

“Language,” Bad corrects absentmindedly. “I don’t think even the bones are left.”

“ _ That’s not better. _ ” 

Bad tips his head to the side, and Sam catches a wink of empty white eyes boring a hole into the single dandelion clinging to the dirt in the abyss.

“What could we have done, Sam? This way- we got to watch it burn, without him burning us. What would you have tried to tell Dream that he hasn’t already heard?”

Sam falters, and Bad doesn’t try to throw him a rope. They both know that nobody’s figured out a satisfactory answer to that; not one that wouldn’t draw a hunter’s eyes to them in turn. They remember what happened the last time that George and Sapnap took it upon themselves to try to bring sense to Dream.

“They can’t rebuild from this,” Bad hums, matter of factly, after some time. Sam turns his eyes towards the crater, lets his gaze fall down to the bedrock as Bad carries the conversation forward. “You could’ve done something with that other crater- filled it up, like Phil did, make it look pretty. Don’t think he wants to put much effort towards it anymore.” 

Ten withers, Sam thinks. Ten withers, and Phil stood by as the heavens rained gunpowder and fire on his sons’ city. 

No, they’ve carved the city’s grave out, and now they’ve washed their hands of it. 

_ Ten withers. _

“Where the hell d’they get ten withers from, anyways? Did Dream help there too?”

Bad laughs, but it’s strained. “This is Technoblade, Sam. He didn’t need the help getting it; only thing Dream helped with, I heard, was the TNT machines.” 

Sam tries to find something to say in response to that, and Bad smiles humorlessly. “Yeah. You still wondering why nobody said anything?” 

“So in war they’ll use three withers, and for a  _ power  _ display, they’ll pull in half the nether and the overworld’s population of creepers?”

His voice comes out colder than he means it to- or maybe, he thinks, it was about time someone said something. 

Bad’s carefully eyeing him, eyeing the way that there’s a hissing deep, deep in Sam's chest, eyeing the way that the green fur along his flanks spikes and bristles. Around them, gunpowder hangs, thick and scalding.

“Three of the most powerful warriors on this goddamned smp,” Sam hisses, ignoring Bad’s scandalized  _ language,  _ as he wheels back around to face the crater. “Three of the most powerful warriors on this smp,” Sam says, as the fury drains out of his voice, “and they felt the need to use it on a traumatized cabinet and a pair of kids, with no opposition.” 

They stand in silence as the sun begins to dip; there’s nothing else to say, when everything’s been screamed for so long.

Gold spills across the crater, and drips into the caverns. Sam watches it wash across twisted metal and glitter off of wet stone while Bad murmurs “Golden hour, right? Prettiest hour of the day.”

His words bounce off of stone, falling into the silence waiting below, and Sam tries not to think of the echoing irony. 

“Picturesque,” Sam agrees, flatly, and shifts to sit back on his haunches. Bad joins him after a moment’s thought, and they watch as the last of the scavengers disperse when the sun falls further behind the horizon, gold seeping into scarlet. 

_ Red in the morning, sailors take warning.  _

“Red in the night, sailor’s delight,” Sam murmurs. Bad hums in absentminded agreeance, before he blinks. “That’s a quick turnaround. It was storming earlier- more lightning than any of us had seen yet!”

Unease prickles and crawls along the back of Sam's neck. 

“How bad?”

“Somebody got hit with lightning. Puffy and I nearly got hit, too. Could’ve probably gotten a few mob heads if we’d tried.” 

He knows he’s not the only one who sees the pattern. Who sees that every time,  _ every time  _ this server’s drought is broken-

“Someone’s got a flare for the dramatic,” Bad supplies with a quiet laugh, and Sam shakes his head. 

“I don’t like it. Usually if that happens, you actively try to  _ avoid  _ it, y’know?”

Bad laughs again, and something about it is too loud. Sitting on the edge of a grave, and laughing... 

“You could say that about a lot of things on this server,” he points out, and Sam shakes his head vehemently, even as he cracks a reluctant smile. 

“Nasty crimson vines, possible gods- I can accept those, but I draw the line at conveniently timed weather that may or may not be controlled by the numerous theater kids that frequent this place.” 

“Or, consider: we find out who it is, and we ask them to keep it raining permanently so that in lieu of Dream’s End- and subsequent elytra- ban, we can have a different form of flight.” 

Sam does laugh at that, and bad looks pleased with himself. 

He starts to rise, shaking the night chill off. Bad cocks his head and draws his crossbow, impaling a nearby spider. 

“Heading back?”

Sam casts one more look over at the crater. There’s no way to see into the depths; not a single hint left of what it was. Just a grave, and a pair of lanterns floating high above, caught in the obsidian, memories of brighter days.

“Yeah, I think so. Nearly finished that damned project, but right now I'm about to collapse before I work on it more.” 

“Language. Still working on the prison?” Sam leans on the trident, and watches Bad carefully. He can’t find any judgement; but he also can’t read Bad’s expression on a good day. 

“A promise is a promise. Once I finish it, my debt’s out.” 

For a minute, Bad hesitates. Sam waits, quietly, as the night falls quiet and heavy around them, until Bad finally asks “And after?”

Sam's smile doesn’t reach his eyes. 

“Got a nice, cushy position as the server god’s warden. In case his withers and TNT aren’t enough.” 

Bad nods slowly, and Sam can’t tell if that’s what Bad wanted to hear, but the demon smiles brightly nonetheless. 

“I’m glad you have it figured out, then.” 

Sam's not terribly sure he’s as glad as Bad claims to be; he’s not sure that any of them are happy with the roles that they’ve been given. 

Because that’s what it’s come down to, in the end, he thinks. As the night blurs into an inky puddle, Bad’s farewell hanging behind him, the air crackling with sea-salt around him, they’ve gone from friends to allies, people to pieces.

All at Dream’s behest. 

...If he can still call that thing Dream, Sam grudgingly admits to himself. He’s not sure when Dream’s gentler tones faded into the cold lines of the mask, when that smile took on a threatening edge- but it’s not the same as before. 

None of them are, but especially not Dream. 

He blows out another slow, careful breath that does nothing to ease the pressure in his chest, and focuses on not turning himself into an armored creeper pancake.

\--

Night’s faded into a pitch-black midnight when Sam lands with a heavy  _ thump  _ in the plains. There’s an ache building in his shoulders, and briefly, Sam considers connecting himself to the Nether highway. 

And then he remembers. 

_ Ten withers, and TNT handed out like candy. Blood enough to drown even the self-proclaimed blood god.  _

No, he’s just fine out here, away from vengeful gods and the walking Greek tragedy that is the Antarctic anarchists.

He slings his trident back over his shoulder, trotting the rest of the way to his mountain. Distractedly leafing through his inventory for some baked potatoes, he finds that he’s just out, and he throws a quick prayer out to the stars that he won’t have to make  _ another  _ trip back to Purpled.

Then there’s movement before him, and Sam draws up short, rapidly tucking it away.

The wall to the mountain- to  _ his  _ base is just sliding up, seams connecting together. 

Nobody should be in there at this time, Sam thinks. Almost nobody knows about it, anyways. He’s  _ designed  _ it that way, as paranoia gave way to a weary sort of acceptance. 

The thought doesn’t comfort him as he unslings his trident. He can’t hear anything- through the thick stone, any sort of noise would be muffled, which is good design for stealth. 

Also a wonderful design for an ambush. 

Steeling himself, he hits the button, and listens. The wall groans as it sinks back down, and the wider the gap goes, the more he can hear. 

Someone’s whispering on the other side. 

...Multiple someones.

_ “-told you this was a bad idea-” _

_ “-it’ll be fine, it’ll be fine, big guy! I’ve got an invitation, and he likes you, and we can call in that favor-” _

_ “...fine, he’s neutral- we… hopefully he won’t trick us-” _

_ “-we won’t let him-” _

The wall comes down, and Sam, trident in hand, stares down at Tommy and Tubbo, clustered together by the entrance.

They stare back, frozen. 

It’s an awkward sort of silence that stretches long enough for the wall to begin to slide back up. 

The mechanisms grinding against each other snap them out of their strange little standoff, and as Sam vaults himself through the door, Tommy launches directly into a tirade of familiar greetings. 

“Big guy! It’s been so long, it’s been so long- how’ve you been? We’re not interrupting something, are we-”

Or well, Tommy launches into his greetings, and Tubbo interjects in between; Sam blinks as he looks between them, trying to follow their thread of thought as he gathers his own.

“-if we are, we’ll leave, we don’t mean to intrude, it’s just been a day and well-”

“-I said “hey, you know who’s a pal of ours, who hasn’t betrayed us yet, who’s welcomed us” and Tubbo said-”

“-and I said-”

“Alright, alright, hold up, one at a time-” 

Sam holds his hands up in a peacemaking gesture, and then stops short as the two freeze and fall silent. There’s no mistaking the fear; not in their expressions, he can’t read Tubbo’s right now, and Tommy's got a familiar sort of defiance that masks all else, but in the way that they’re pressed so tight together that he can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. Like they can’t figure out who’d jump in front of the sword first- like they can’t tell who’d be the first to disappear.

There’s an axe in Tommy's hand like he’s forgotten how to  _ not  _ hold one, and Tubbo’s hands are hovering above a shield at his side, and Sam realizes that one of them is watching him and the other is watching his trident.

One has an axe and the other has a shield, and neither are even old enough to  _ drink  _ and yet they’ve seen enough blood and death to last them a decade. 

And quite abruptly, Sam realizes how out of his depth he is.

He clears his throat, gently, and slings the trident over his back. Tommy's eyes track the weapon’s path, and flick back to him. The door’s sliding shut behind him, and the last thing he wants is to make the two of them feel trapped.

“Let’s try that again. are either of you actively in danger of bleeding out or dying?”

They exchange looks again. There're three and a half different conversations that Sam feels like he’s missing, but he stays quiet, and waits. 

Then Tommy says “Well, neither of us are about to die, but Tubbo- Tubbo just got shot by a.. he’s got some burns, do you have any pots?” At the same time that Tubbo says simply “Tommy just got struck by lightning, he needs pots.”

There’s another argument brewing- in fact, Tommy’s already started saying something that Sam is  _ reasonably  _ sure is going to end with a very colorful  _ take the fucking pots, Tubbo _ , and he heads it off by trotting around them and further down the hall. 

“There’s plenty for both of you, plus food and extra beds if you go rummaging through the chests.” 

It’s a gentle tease at both of their habits- Tommy flinches, though, like Sam's spat a flaming arrow his way, and Tubbo stills. Then Tommy glances at Tubbo and dashes off to find the chests, and Sam feels like he’s missed a step, missed  _ something.  _

Tubbo, though- Tubbo lags behind, and turns to Sam. 

“Who else knows that this place exists?”

Sam reads between the lines well enough.  _ Who else can find us here? How fast do we have to run? _

“Nobody who would get past me.” 

He’s not surprised to find that he means it. Not when he stares down at Tubbo and remembers a presidency passed around twice before it settles on him because who  _ else _ would it settle on, not when the memory of stars and fire is seared, angry and red, all across him when he’s not yet lost all the soft edges of childhood.

Tubbo searches his expression for something. He doesn’t find it, and for the first time, Sam watches as Tubbo's shoulders slump and he slings the shield back to his side, and he winces as he sees the burns, chafed and raw across Tubbo's hands. 

The  _ back  _ of his hands and arms. Yet his front was all singed.

He’d been facing them dead-on for a second time, arms outstretched.

Sam can’t remember any similar burns on Tommy. It’s not a puzzle that takes long to solve, even as gunpowder simmers in his chest again.

Tommy's victorious crow echoes through the base, and they both turn as he bounds back to them, hands full of glass bottles and shining apples, both of which he shoves onto Tubbo. 

“Eat up, big man! We feast, tonight.” 

“You can’t survive off of  _ just  _ gapples and regen potions- how many did you even find? Did you grab actual food as well?” 

“Enough for the next month,” Tommy declares, and something pings in Sam's head as he watches Tommy shove the rest of the gapples into his bag. “Who needs food when you have the gapple’s absorption?”

“Saturation,” Tubbo corrects, and he rolls his eyes as Tommy waves a hand dismissively. “saturation, absorption- all I need to know is that I won’t be hungry for days after!”

“Why do you need it for the next month, Tommy?” 

They both stare at him for a second, but Sam's already plowing onwards, brow furrowed. “Where are you guys gonna be going? L’manburg’s a massive crater right now, it’s night- do you two have a game plan?”

Silence hangs between them. Sam takes another minute to get a better look at them as the pots knit skin together and smooth over raw burns. There's a faint fractal pattern crawling up Tommy’s arms and knit tight around his neck, and a wildly flickering fire trapped in his eyes. Sam remembers, briefly, what it’s like to burn as the spiralling patterns under his own fur itch with sympathy. Then he wonders what it’s like to burn when you’ve just been ground down to ashes, and the weight in his chest grows a little larger.

“Did we ever have a game plan? We wing it, and ace it! No mobs stand a chance, and nobody- nobody will come near us. If they try-” Tommy grins, hefting the axe in his hands, and Sam marvels at the  _ desperation  _ in the action. 

The axe- it’s not made for him, it’s half the kid’s height, for crying out loud. If Sam had to take a guess, he knows who it was made for, based on the blood worn into the pine handle, based on the notched netherite glittering with enchantments that Tommy would  _ absolutely  _ not have the patience to grind for. Not the way that a man who has ten withers would.

He can stand by- help them tonight, and send them off on their way tomorrow. Let them chase hope’s shadow. 

And then some day in the future, he’ll get a nice little notification- maybe, if he’s lucky, someone will come tell him in person, that they’ve run too long, too hard, and ended the same way that their city, that their forefathers have gone. 

Sam's so, so tired of watching their tragedies. 

So he settles back on his haunches, and meets their eyes, even as the threads of a plan begin to knit together in the back of his head.

“So- alone, mind you, between the two of you, you’re hoping to strike out and make it from there?”

There’s a familiar, feral edge to Tommy's smile that only deepens the disbelief congealing in Sam's gut as he says “that’s the way it’s been from the beginning, innit?” 

He remembers ravines, and Tommy rushing out to meet him when Wilbur was lost deep in his own thoughts, in his own worship of the gunpowder that they never fully washed out of L’manburg’s grounds. Sam had gone to look; the potion bottles that he’d pressed into Tommy’s hands, hoping that it’d keep him safe for just a day longer laid, empty and shattered on the stone.

He looks to Tubbo, and only sees the same resignation reflected in the steel of his eyes. And there, he sees the desperation that had seeped from the walls of the White House, from Tubbo even as he’d said  _ Schlatt, he’s- he’s drunk, again  _ or  _ Schlatt’s going to suspect me any day, now, if he ever gets out of the bottle- _

Sam looks at them, and thinks  _ not again. I will not watch two more graves being dug.  _

And he asks “Does it have to be that way?”

He’s pretty sure neither of them know what to say in response to that. which- fair, Sam concedes. It is a big question, and he’s not sure how many times they’ve been asked it before. He may as well just ask outright, judging by the suspicion creeping into their expressions. 

“If you two need- there’s plenty of room in the base. nobody comes by here-”  _ not anymore, not when George, not when Sapnap are still searching for some familiarity in that laughing mask _ “-And even if they did, I’d have to tell them where to look. Which I don’t  _ plan  _ on doing. My offer didn’t change from last time.” 

The two exchange  _ another  _ look. 

This time, Sam is watching. This time, Sam can see the flickering question that flits through Tommy's expression; he misses the answer, but Tommy doesn’t, judging by the way that he turns back to face Sam at the same time that Tubbo does. 

“We wouldn’t say no to that, big man. You  _ could  _ practically turn this place into a hotel.” 

Sam breathes out a laugh that sounds more like a sigh. 

He could. He wonders if that’s what he was hoping, before. A safe place for people who’ve turned their back to it all. 

Then he shakes himself. whatever he was hoping for before- well. There’s a purpose for it now that he should focus on.

“You could. Except you don’t pay anything here.” 

He’s looking, again, and something unknots in his chest as he sees the hope that flickers through their expressions. 

Tommy, of course, is allergic to sentimental silences longer than five seconds. So Tommy, of course, snorts “Isn’t that called a shelter? Are you running a shelter, Sam?”

That’s its own minefield that none of them are ready to touch. Sam shrugs, easy as anything, and lopes over to the chest to pull out more baked potatoes. 

“Some people commit war crimes, some people try not to pour gasoline on a raging fire.” He hears a quiet snort- not from Tommy, this time, and hums softly. 

Small victories.

He turns back to face them. The adrenaline is wearing off- Tommy’s arm around Tubbo seems less like a friendly move and more like he doesn’t want to show that he’s about three steps away from dropping, and Tubbo’s paler than he’s ever seen, ramrod-straight posture drooping. 

“We can go over more when it’s not midnight, how about that? There’s spare beds, and spare rooms. Fair warning- the redstone is loud, but I can show you where it’s quieter if that bothers you.” 

Both immediately shake their heads.

“It’s fine, really! How people sleep in silence- I never know, it’s unnatural, all you have left to listen to is the blood in your ears and that’s just  _ depressing. _ ”

“It’s not depressing, it’s terrifying,” Tubbo contradicts, and Sam bites down another spike of  _ what the fuck  _ as Tommy accepts the addition, something tight around the edges of his smile. 

“Then the redstone’s got you covered.” 

He sets off down the steps, further down the hall. They take a moment to catch up, and then Tommy rushes ahead, pulling Tubbo after him. 

“So I  _ may  _ or may not have already found the spare beds- we’ll pick out a room, and you don’t have to worry about a thing, big man!” 

Sam pauses, then arches an eyebrow. “My job is  _ literally  _ to worry about you while you’re here.” 

Wrong thing, he notes, watching their shoulders tighten. 

“Seriously, you don’t have to worry yourself. We’ll be just fine, like always; no need to bother yourself.” 

He knocks them both gently on the shoulder as he passes them yet again to flick the lights on, making sure they hear his footfalls all the while. The fewer surprises, the better.

“Quit that. You’re here, let me look out for you two some, alright? I’ll decide for myself what I have to do, and right now that means giving you a safe place to crash for the night.”

They don’t contest further; Tommy pulls Tubbo into a side room, and Sam eases out a quiet sigh. 

Ravines, and White Houses, and leaders who  _ should’ve known better  _ than to leave behind pieces to pick up, and this is what they’ve come to. 

He knocks gently on the wall outside the room they’ve slid into. 

“If you need anything, I’m close by in the furnace room, alright?”

A muffled  _ okay  _ reaches his ears, and then Tubbo pops out of the room; no shield, no hastily put-on chestplate and this time Sam feels oddly relieved. 

“Thank you, Sam.” 

Sam only offers a tired smile. 

“I’ve got you two.”

Tubbo doesn’t seem to quite know what to do with that any more than Tommy does, judging by the sudden lack of movement. He nods, graciously, and then disappears into the room. 

Listening for a moment, Sam hears a muffled argument. 

_ No, let me take the bed closer to the door, it’s fine, I need the room- your long-ass legs take up so much room, but I flail, do you want to be smacked- I’ll take being smacked, just let me take the closer bed- dammit, Tubbo- _

Sam doesn’t need to think for long on why they’re fighting over the bed that’s closer to the door- closer to visitors. 

He takes a deep breath, and doesn’t hang up his armor; keeps his trident across his back. 

The furnace room would muffle the sound of intruders. He settles in the hall, armor gently clicking against the polished stone, and keeps the lights on. 

He stays there for the night, watching. 


	2. latibule.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which they sort out their next steps, and realize that they don't have to throw themselves to burn again in order to live.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy cannoli! the support for this has been absolutely insane. as always, thank you guys so much; without further ado, enjoy!

Sunrise comes early, even up in the more temperate reaches. This isn’t a particularly  _ surprising  _ fact; but Sam still counts his blessings that the sun actually  _ sets  _ and rises at proper times here. 

The wintery reaches up north see only a few hours of darkness, after all, and he’s familiar with the hell that that wreaks on a man’s sleep and work schedule. So when he hears the faint scrape of a door opening, Sam stirs, turning to check for sunlight, fully expecting to see the sunrise creep over the horizon.

He’s met with darkened skies; the stars are still twinkling, not dimmed in the  _ slightest  _ by a rising sun.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, Sam turns back to the hallway, squinting. The shadows are too thick to make out any details, but he can see the faint white heat-shimmer of the enchanted weapons, and the duller red glow of two people edging out of the room. 

Torchlight spills out across the hallway in the next moment, and Sam has to briefly shut his eyes, hissing softly in surprise as Tommy sputters out surprised swears in the same breath. 

“Holy fuck, holy- what the fuck, man, what the fuck! Do you- are you always lurking in the dark? Put a fucking bell on! Or turn on the lights! Don’t just sit there- lurking like a  _ creeper _ or a- er, lurker-”

“Put a bell- no? Most people aren’t usually  _ up  _ at this time to be scared by me, Tommy.” Sam stifles a yawn, and squints at the two as they shift in front of him. “Why are you two even up before sunrise anyways?”

“It’s quieter! We also  _ don’t  _ run into people to be scared by!” 

Sam scrubs a hand over his face again, hoping the action will impart some clarity; Tommy’s loud, but he knows when Tommy’s being loud for the sake of it, and when Tommy's trying to cover for something. 

Like Tubbo’s careful silence, or the way neither of them meet his eyes. Like the way they’re eyeing the door, ready to bolt.

“Yeah? Somehow I don’t think that running into someone at this time is going to be the same as running into a creeper, or a mob of skeletons.” 

Tommy's smile strains again. 

Tubbo glances down the hall again. 

_ Gentle, gentle. If a redstone signal doesn’t go through one way, you reroute. _

“Look, it’s early, and you’re still probably running on fumes. Let’s just… take a minute? Get some more sleep, get some food, and  _ talk  _ properly?” 

“Who knows we’re here?” 

“Nobody.” Sam doesn’t think twice about his answer; they seem taken aback, and then Tubbo tilts his head. 

“Absolutely nobody? Not- not Dream, not anybody?”

“I'm pretty sure that Dream doesn’t even know where this base is at the moment,” Sam murmurs in reply, steadily meeting Tubbo’s searching gaze.

Dream knows where the old one is; he’s visited it, too, Sam knows, remembering disturbed cobwebs and redstone dust scattered across the room. 

“The only people who know about this base are- none of them know you’re here. They won’t barge in, either.” George and Sapnap won’t, at least. He doesn’t know where they’ve gone; another connection fading into the dust as they chase their own ghosts. Punz… he’ll have to talk to Punz, though if he has to wager a guess, the mercenary is busy chasing down another contract. Nobody’s quite stepped within these walls for shelter outside of him, Sam realizes. Not for a while.

He wonders how long it  _ would  _ take Dream to find this, then; shoves that thought down away to where it can be helpful  _ later.  _

Tubbo and Tommy are having another one of their conversations when he drags himself out of his thoughts. Tubbo’s listing against Tommy, again, and the fight’s draining out of Tommy; Sam glances back at the clock, and then trots forward. 

Tommy flinches against him and Tubbo stiffens as he settles a gentle arm around them both. It takes another moment, and then Tommy leans into the support. Neither protest as he steers them back down the hall. 

“Let’s get some more sleep. It’s safe here, alright?”

“Sleep is for the weak,” Tommy grumbles, and promptly yawns. Tubbo pokes him on the shoulder. 

“So does that-”

“No, no it doesn’t, shut  _ up _ -”

“Noodle arms, I bet  _ I  _ could beat you-”

“I’m the big man here, the Big T, what the fuck do you  _ mean  _ noodle arms, look at how much I can flex-” 

Sam snorts softly and flicks a nearby lamp to a dimmed setting. 

“Let’s try not to break anything before the day’s started, you two.”

Tommy splutters again, and Tubbo cackles, slipping into the darkened room. 

“Hear that? Don’t pop a vessel,  _ Big T _ .”

“I’ll pop  _ you  _ like a vessel-” 

Their bickering fades as the door swings shut. Blowing out a soft breath, Sam settles back down in the hall as all falls quiet. 

If they’re lucky, they’ll sleep past sunrise. 

The redstone in the walls throbs in time to his thoughts, the earth creaking as it settles again. 

_ They’re trying to avoid people. Afraid that more conflict will arise? They don’t run from conflict. It’s bad this time. How did it get this bad? How did we not see it get this bad? _

He knows the answer to that last question even as he forms it. 

If the world’s already been burning, you can’t tell apart the bonfires. It’s all been falling apart for so long that they’re merely an addition to a long, long list of casualties. 

When did it start? When Dream walked out of that little wooden house and didn’t come back, or when the first news of him was  _ stacks of TNT, whispers of alliance for chaos and only chaos _ ? When Wilbur slammed his fist into a little wood button, or when Techno had unleashed his first withers?

He doesn’t know the answer to that question. There’s a lot of questions that fall into that category, to be fair.

The night creeps onwards, offering him no answers even as the first rays of sunlight creep through the small windows.

He does a double take as he notes the pink splashing the stone bricks.  _ Sunrise.  _ Holding his breath, Sam listens carefully.

Twenty minutes, then forty creep by. 

There’s not a single sound. Quietly, he blows out the breath that he’s been holding. 

Between the two of them, they need all the rest that they can get. 

Careful to keep his armor from scraping against the stone, Sam stretches, and trots down to the chests lining the walls. 

They need rest, and then food. 

The furnace crackles to life, and Sam hums as warm reds and oranges bloom around it. This late in the summer, the base traps more chills than it ought to. 

The potatoes cook in short order, and Sam scavenges through his chest. No vegetables. No.. anything besides the potatoes, really. This is a chest stockpiled for a mostly absent mechanic, not for  _ actual meals,  _ and distantly, Sam wonders if he’s going to have to start a farm around the base if he’s going to be staying here more. 

It’s been brought up before.

George, sprawled over Sapnap as they’d watched the night bleed out over the land, had complained.  _ Do you live only off of potatoes? Make them five ways and call it a meal?  _ Sam had laughed in response at the time, warm and loud.

_ What do I need more for? None of us are particularly picky, and if we are, we’re not around long enough for it to matter.  _

_ Worse than Dream, I tell you,  _ Sapnap had teased.  _ You and him would live off of berries if it was convenient. You’re lucky you have us- well, have George to extol the wonders of gardens to you.  _

_ Surprising,  _ he’d shot back. _ You know George wouldn’t get his hands dirty enough to follow through with the gardening that he doesn’t shut up about. _

_ Shut up. You can admire something but not partake in it.  _

_ Sounds like the words of a pussy.  _

_ Takes one to know one, doesn’t it? _

_ Take that back, you egghead- _

Sam hums again as he looks up. The ghosts fade slowly, but willingly. (He’ll chase them down again, someday, he thinks. They all need a little healing right now.)

Embedded deep in the ceiling, the lamps wink back gently at him, and up above, up above where a previously tilled plot has been left to be run over with vegetation and young trees, and where footprints and signs have been washed away… 

...He can get seeds, and-

A door clicks open, and that’s all the warning he gets before Tommy shouts “Sam? Big man, you up?”

The day’s started, then. 

“Well, if I wasn't, I am now,” he calls back dryly, and a flurry of harried whispering breaks out. 

They’re hurrying down the hall after his voice, and he  _ just  _ catches the tail end of Tubbo hissing “-can’t just wake people up-” as the two skid into the furnace room.

Shaking himself off, he stands, arching an eyebrow at them. They’re tense when they come into sight, although some of it slackens when they note the lines of amusement in his expression. 

“Sam! Sam, Sam, you’re even more of a go-getter than us, Mr. you need rest, and what is  _ cooking- _ ” 

Sam's fairly sure that Tommy hasn’t taken a single breath since he’s walked in, and he can only watch, bemused, as Tommy swipes a baked potato, and then another, passing one off to Tubbo.

“Just potatoes, unfortunately. This base wasn’t really set up for more.”

Tubbo scrubs the sleep out of his eyes before frowning over at Sam. “Well, why not? Don’t you live here?”

“I do.” Sam pauses, then amends quickly “I did, at least. I’ve been spending time away, though; the distance is nice, but it’s inconvenient when I’m in the midst of a large project.”

He notes when, exactly, the last sentence catches their attention. Tommy's ears prick, as Tubbo’s eyes sharpen with curiosity. 

“A project, you say? Are you doing one right now, then? Bigger than the guardian farm?”

“A much, much bigger, and more complicated project is underway.” Sam’s careful to keep his tone light, careful to keep his movements casual as he takes out the last of the potatoes. “It’s a bit of a surprise right now.” 

“If it's big, it can’t be that hard to find,” Tommy argues, and Sam snickers softly, ice pooling in his gut. 

“Sure, but I think you two have better things to do with your time than searching out half-complete projects that I can show off more safely, in a proper tour.”

Gods below, he hopes that he never has to show it to them. 

By now, the two of them have sunk down the wall opposite of him, Tommy propping a leg up on top of Tubbo’s as he wolfs down his first two potatoes. 

Tubbo's made a half-aborted move to stop Tommy, and Sam pauses to pay more attention. 

Tommy eats like a man starving- and given the sharp angles of his elbows and knees, Sam has a guess at what the last few months have brought. But Tubbo? Tubbo waits, and watches. 

It takes Sam a minute, and then his heart sinks. 

Gently, he points out “I cooked your potatoes in the same batch as mine and Tommy’s. Something happens to one of them, something happens to all of them.”

Tommy's already demonstrated ample evidence, but just to ease the tension in Tubbo's shoulders, Sam takes an extra potato to bite into it. 

“Alright?”

Tubbo chances a nod, and it’s not long until he follows suit.

Sam, in the meantime- Sam files this away. There’s sins aplenty for all of them, and this is only one of them. 

It doesn’t make it any more forgettable. 

He's hoping to wait until  _ after  _ the meal to bring up the question of what they plan to do, but Tommy jumps ahead.

“So, Sam. We’ve been thinking, and you- you’ve been a big help! A huge support, really. But Dream’s still out there, and he’s still got the disks, and we- well, we’ve got to get those disks back from Dream. It’s the only way to hope to pull something over him.”

Sam doesn’t miss the way that Tubbo’s eyes flicker to Tommy; nor does he miss the way Tommy shifts and tenses at the sharp edges in Tubbo’s expression. There’s a history of old wounds there that haven’t stopped bleeding, let alone started healing. 

That cannot bode well.

He bites his tongue, and sits forward. There’ll- hopefully- be time to address it later. 

“You want to pull something over him? Why?”

“We want to kill him,” Tubbo says bluntly. 

Sam blinks, and for a moment, he can’t hear the redstone in the room over the sound of his heartbeat roaring in his ears as he processes the sentence that Tubbo has laid bare in front of them all. 

Tommy doesn’t refute this; his jaw sets as he watches Sam, and they’re both perfectly still. 

They’re waiting for him to make the next move, Sam realizes. It’s not a secret that the original eight- there was something complicated in the way that they bled for each other as much as they made each other bleed. 

And they’ve just told him that they want to kill the heart of the server’s core.

Sam takes a deep breath, sets the budding knot in his stomach aside, and says “Okay. You want to kill the server’s de-facto owner, who isn’t divine but is damn close at this point, and even if he wasn’t, knows his way around an axe and bow better than you know each other. Do you have anything to fall back on?”

They exchange looks, Tubbo muttering “Even the panic room was destroyed, which would’ve been the last of the stash. Did-?”

Tommy waves a hand. “If it’s not on me, I don’t have it. Green  _ bastard  _ made sure of that.”

_ Take a deep breath. In, out. Nothing to their name, but it’s easy enough, with enough determination and people to kit out a hit squad.  _

__ “Does anybody else know about this plan of yours?” 

“Quackity, Fundy, Ranboo- they were there when we declared our plan. And well- now you.” Quackity, who’s long disappeared into the settling dust, who Sam had watched simmer and plot as the cards fell. Fundy- Sam remembers a laugh like shattering glass and bloodied paws, and swallows down a hiss. He’s also gone. Ranboo… 

Sam scrubs a hand down his face,  _ again _ . It’s quite rapidly becoming his go-to gesture, he finds.  _ Gods below. They really would’ve gone for this plan with nothing?  _

_ They didn’t have anything left to lose. _

“Are you- were you going to tell anybody else about this?”

“Depends. Are you?”

That’s not an answer he has to even think about.  _ Time makes traitors of us all,  _ Dream whispers gleefully in the back of his head, and Sam folds his arms. 

“Not unless you give me the go-ahead. Dream is my-” friend,  _ tyrant _ , little brother- “-he was close to us. But he’s hurt people, and done some things that it’s not my place to forgive him for. So whatever you say here- it’s safe with me, and it doesn’t leave this base unless it’s on your terms.” 

The bar, Sam realizes distantly, is in the  _ ground  _ as he watches them exchange cautious looks before nodding. 

_ And they want to throw themselves right back into the fray? _

_ They’re ready to die for it? _

He takes a deep breath, and clears his throat gently. That won’t do, and he damn well intends to stand by it.

“That privacy is unconditional, okay? No matter what you choose to do,  _ this- _ ” he gestures around them, mindful of startling them, “-this safety is not contingent on whether or not you decide to follow through.”

Tommy's eyes narrow. “What’re you- what are you  _ talking  _ about?” Sam glances at Tubbo, and  _ yeah _ , the cogs are definitely turning in his head. 

“I'm saying that throwing yourself at Dream, at the disks again- that’s not your only option.” 

“Well of  _ course _ it is,” Tommy argues. “We can’t hide from him, he won’t  _ leave us be _ , even if we wanted him to. So we take the fight to him, and we  _ end it. _ ” 

“And if you can’t?” Sam takes the question, and digs it  _ deep  _ into the fear bubbling under his skin. “How many fights before you burn out? How  _ long  _ have you been running?” 

Tommy slams his hand against the cracked stone underneath him. “It  _ doesn’t matter.  _ We’ve survived this long, and we can do it again. Dream can take  _ everything,  _ except for us. He can try as hard as he fucking wants, and we’ll be there, like particularly dashing cockroaches requesting our share of the royalties.”

“Is  _ cockroach  _ really the comparison you want to go for- actually,  _ none  _ of that made sense!”

“The point still stands!” 

“It  _ does  _ matter, though.” 

Their arguing grinds to a halt as Sam speaks up once more, and he doesn’t look away as he continues. “I don’t know who, or when- actually, I have a  _ very  _ good guess, but that’s not the point- it  _ matters.  _ Your life-  _ nobody’s  _ life is meant to be constant  _ war.  _ Sometimes you have to step back. Sometimes, that’s the only godsdamned way that you can win on your terms.” 

“So you’re saying we should  _ give up- _ ”

“He’s saying that we should stop playing on Dream’s terms and Dream’s time.” Tommy’s leapt to his feet sometime between his last sentence and Tubbo’s, and Tubbo stands to match him. 

“Did you not  _ hear me?  _ He’ll find us, he won’t  _ let us  _ not play! He  _ never does! _ ” 

“Tommy? Tommy.  _ Breathe. _ ” Alarm spikes in Sam's gut as Tommy's voice does, high and furious- and  _ panicked.  _

“ _ I am breathing!  _ Just fine, in fact, better than any of you-” 

Sam steps forward, careful to telegraph each move, and pulls Tommy into a hug. After a minute, he opens an arm, to let Tubbo step in as well. 

“Slow down for a second. Just slow down, ‘kay?” 

They stand there in silence for a minute; Tommy doesn’t shake, but he’s stiff as a board. Sam doesn’t move, just stands there, and holds them close. 

“Listen to me. Dream doesn’t know where this base is, like I said, okay? He doesn’t know where you two have gone off to. You're not running against an hourglass here, or on borrowed time, or anything.” 

“Nobody knew where  _ Technoblade  _ was, and look how that ended up.” 

“You’re telling me that the blood god’s most favored vessel, the right-hand man of the angel of death, knows how to be  _ subtle? _ ”

Tommy grumbles into his side, even as he begins to relax, inch by inch. “He knows how to be paranoid.” 

“Which aren’t really the same thing,” Sam points out. “Just means that he has every contingency plan for when he’s found, like most people on this server.” 

He lets them go, although they lean into him for a minute longer before scrambling a step back. 

“So how're we feeling?” 

“I think...” Tubbo looks at Tommy, who shifts uneasily on his feet, but no longer looks like he’s ready to bolt. “I think we can stay. At least for right now. Until we’re in better shape.” 

Sam can work with that.  _ They  _ can work with that. 

He offers a warm smile to them, and Tommy grins back, sharp and wild. “And then we’re going to kick  _ ass. _ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello, hello! like i've said: the support for this has absolutely blown me away, and i'm so glad that you all enjoyed it!   
> this chapter was a bit shorter because i had some scenes in mind that wound up fitting neater into next chapter and the ensuing character introduction, so here we are!  
> as always, i am entirely down to talk about halcyon some, talk about their choices- comments feed the author, and if you want to scream at me some more, you can find me on tumblr at scarlet-mangata!

**Author's Note:**

> hey, hi, hello! this is very much indulgence because tbh i looked at the server and went "everybody there is hurting in one way or another and they need that to be acknowledged and they deserve a chance to heal"  
> except c!dream  
> he needs a baseball bat to the kneecaps  
> no set posting schedule because i'm a nursing student and god knows my semesters are hell, but the story should flow faster now that i'm out of the introductory chapter!  
> next chapter will be clingyduo going "wait you mean there's an option where we don't throw ourselves at the obsidian wall called dream repeatedly"
> 
> anyways: comments and such welcomed, feed the author, lolol  
> and if you want to come screech at me elsewhere, you can find me on tumblr at scarlet-mangata!


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